Aussie Ninja reckons most seals look good in navy
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Thu, 17 August 2006
by: Australian Ninja
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Still more shooting and making things go 'boom.' Sounds like my kind of challenge. Socom 3 is a third person action adventure game. Modern squad based warfare [a team of four] is the order of the day. Online and offline it is a well executed game with a wide selection of weapons and some surprisingly fun to drive vehicles.
Taking the lead, you issue commands to your team - but most of the time they are intelligent enough to take care of themselves and follow you without any hassle. Each mission has a fantastic selection of guns available, but usually it's best to go with what's recommended for that particular mission. Choosing how many grenades and flash bangs your team equips can make a big difference to most missions. As does equipping silencers to your guns.
For the majority of missions, you can pick enemies off from afar, rarely will you be in close quarters combat. In fact, when the opportunity to get up close and personal occurs, your team mates can smack an enemy with the butt of their rifle - but you have no such option. No knife, or melee attack to speak of is available. It's a bit strange really, but the game is obviously meant to me played at mid to long range. Frequently you will be using rifle scopes that magnify your view.
Also, night vision and thermal vision get used often during the game. Thermal vision is sweet as. To be clear, night vision magnifies the existing light - turning the TV screen green in the process (like that Paris Hilton "movie") and hurting you eyes. Thermal vision uses heat signatures - such as body heat (Predator style) - to allow you to see enemies that would otherwise be invisible in the dark.
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A few cool vehicles are utilised during various missions. Sadly, no tanks. But there is a gunboat, a speedboat, jeep with mounted turret, hummer style vehicle again with mounted gun turret, and pick up trucks. All good fun. The vehicles usually only get used for short segments of missions, but they highlight the gameplay nicely. My favourite vehicle out of those I just mentioned was by far the gunboat. Zipping around the river system firing gun turrets and a grenade launcher was a guilty pleasure. When you have the gunboat the enemies don't stand a chance against you; you are practically untouchable. Mostly the boat is used to get around, hopping in and out to reach different objectives.
The game's pacing is adjustable to suit the player's preference. Any mission can be rushed through quickly, or you can sit back and take your time. Both play styles are accommodated nicely - brute force or stealth both work well.
Socom 3 is an okay looking game, with decent character models. But it has some choppy animations. Most of the time it's good, but occasionally your character, or one of your team-mates, will jerk around like they are having a fit. The backgrounds - especially outdoor areas - are very bland. The textures and detail are plain as vanilla ice-cream. Many of the stages are quite large areas with no loading. I don't know much about the technical stuff in games, but I do know the bigger game maps require a lot of memory and that can result in needing to compromise on other things. (Sammy's note: It is more of an issue on a console, like the PS2, that has no hard drive. Just steal a decent PC, or an Xbox 360, and you'll be fine) So having large playing areas often comes at the expense of background detail, special effects, the quality of surface textures etc. Anyhow, Socom 3 and its large levels run quite smoothly and it is still pretty at times. But, overall, the game is visually not very impressive. The important thing is that you can rapidly travel around the maps/missions without loading, or mucking about - and that's what counts in action games with large maps.
While I don't have access to any online console gaming, I made the effort to read a bit on the net about Socom 3's online features and the history of the series. Well, the unanimous point of view - whether you look at other sites reviews, or the fan forums - is that Socom 3 is the best in the series and many peole say it is the best online PS2 game so far.
The single player campaign is what I spent my time with. While I enjoyed the game, I'd find it hard to recommend purchase if you'll just be playing the single player game.
The fourteen missions available are highly enjoyable, but you fly through them that fast its over before you know it. Both myself and my brother easily finished the single player campaign in under a week. The thing you need to consider is, are you going to play this game by yourself or are you buying it to play online? For the offline missions, it's worth a rental, especially if you're into modern military warfare squad-based games. However, if it's the online modes you are after, this game is definitely worth buying.
This being my first experience with the Socom series, initially I found the controls a little convoluted and confusing. However, I quickly adapted and the controls became rather intuitive, though still with odd moments of clumsiness. If you play plenty of action games, then it's nothing new. But, basically, the controls are not friendly to new players and the game is lacking in decent tutorials.
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Okay, that was lame and clichéd, but I just had to throw it in there [bad pun intended]. Socom 3's sounds are good and chunky. I guess that's how I would describe it. Not crisp and clean like most of the WW2 FPS's sounds. More chunky and blunt. It does sound good, it is just a little different. I usually kept the volume up pretty high when playing, as I liked the gunshots and radio chatter.
 | | Umm...generic screenshot caption #52. Yeah, okay - I couldn't think of anything for this one, leave me alone. |
The atmosphere is pretty good in Socom. While not quite as immersive as some other war games, it does have its moments. Like when you take out some terrorist goons in a block building with a grenade, then order your team to "clear the area." One of the tactics I often used was ordering my team to throw a fragmentation [frag] grenade, to temporarily blind the enemy - then rushing up and shooting them while they are helpless. Good times.
As I said, the single player campaign has around 14 missions/maps. The online play contains its own maps and plenty of different play modes. While solo play is fairly enjoyable, I can't stress enough that Socom 3 is meant to played online. The single player is too short as a stand alone game, but if you will be playing online, you can consider it a worthy bonus game that provides some fun basic training.
*Sammy's note: Buttonhole also received the PSP version of this title. I believe Special K is going to review that one for us at some stage (he's a ridiculously busy dude).*
by: Australian Ninja
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The 7 is for offline play, while the 9 is for online. A quality title that improves on its predecessors | |
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